A Value - Driven IT

In many organizations, IT is still being portrayed as a help desk, back office function and cost center, a business outsider, while IT is supposedly to be an integral and critical part of IT. At what point does IT no longer have to deal with the continuing discussions that include the phrase "IT and the business"? How should IT build its value proposition, and gain a solid reputation as a value creator, innovation engine, customer champion, talent master, business catalyzer and beyond?
First start by ensuring IT is in fact marketable. Is the IT organization seen as part of the solution or a part of the problem? You must "toot your own horn," but make sure it does not backfire. Do your groundwork. Understand the strengths and weaknesses as perceived by your peers as well as the users. Review how the rest of the C suite is marketing their successes and fall in line where appropriate. Instead of focusing solely on the value of IT, make sure you show the value of IT in collaboration with others in delivering on a specific set of company goals. Make sure you have an outstanding team, and then let folks know about it in a way that resonates with the intended audience. Finally, make sure you know why you are marketing IT. What are you expecting? What is the goal of this effort? Measure and adapt.


IT needs to have a clear vision and road-map to which CIOs expect the IT department to deliver. To build and demonstrate IT Success, IT leaders need to focus on the business IT roadmap; that is how IT supports business objectives and processes leveraged by IT and an effective IT strategy as integral component of business strategy. Where IT shall focus on the business bottom line: How fast can IT gets products and services to market - “Time to Market,” and how can the IT department support the business from a Cycle Time and Cost Effectiveness perspective. IT roadmap reflects stakeholder expectations from executive management, business management, IT Management and IT GRC Management perspective where stakeholder expectations drives business (IT) objectives that delivers the business - IT roadmap executed by employees and organization. IT delivers to demand and cost drivers. IT supports the achievement of tactical business objectives, IT delivers perceived added value services at a reasonable cost, IT delivers to operational and service level agreements and commitments, IT investments positively affect business productivity and the customer experience.

IT contributes to business objectives because IT proposition has to be well aligned to the business strategy: Stakeholder expectations are understood and IT propose a service portfolio that correspond to demand and cost drivers, business contribution, cost, consumption and chargeback is identified, focus is on perfect order business transactions, services are effective with demand and cost drivers identified, services are competitive via benchmark measurement, and new technological solutions that could change how current business is performed are explored, proposed and implemented. On the IT side, you also need to understand (1) which service that are concerned (increase / decrease in demand) and if IT need to modify / provide new service bundles, (2) does IT provide a cost effective and secure IT architecture and that permit the rapid development of new business services (3) From ROI perspective, can you spell out the cost? (4) can you ensure that services / applications are up and running (business continuity) at the same time, IT is a major business differentiator and need to be on top of business initiatives to be successful. IT generally tends to run at the speed equal or higher than sales which put immense pressure to prove yourselves and hence marketing is a manner of handling perception management.

IT provides competitive leverage to business’ long term growth: Because more often, technology is the cause to innovation disruption and information is the lifeblood of business; and IT organizations deliver effective IT services and innovative technology solutions to improve competitiveness, demonstrated and articulated in an IT business model: “This is how we deliver IT solutions to the business.” IT provides competitive leverage. If CIOs had the seat at big table, IT supports the achievement of strategic business objectives with the priorities from an executive management perspective. IT delivers value to expenditure, IT cost is managed effectively, IT risk is identified and managed, Targeted inter company IT synergies deliver to schedule, Business Continuity is ensured. There are key priorities from an IT Risk management perspective: The organization's assets and operations are protected, key business and technology risk is effectively managed, effective process, practice and controls are in place, IT has clear GRC objectives to which businesses expect IT to deliver.

IT needs to deliver effective services and solutions to business needs on value and on time. With the trend of IT consumerization and emergent Cloud computing, at the end of the day, business departments will take the decision to walk around IT and purchase cloud source on their own when IT is not perceived to understand stakeholder expectations, IT is not perceived to contribute to business objectives, IT is not perceived to deliver value to cost, IT is not perceived to deliver tailored solution to business needs, The IT department is unable to deliver services in a time to market perspective, IT propose an effective service/solution portfolio that correspond to demand and cost drivers. IT value proposition is based on: “This is how we enable business growth and support business objectives with services/solutions in a time to market perspective.” Time to market perspective is where IT supports business processes to develop vision and strategy, to develop and manage products and services, to market and sell products and services, to deliver products and services, to manage customer services, to develop and manage Human Capital, to manage information technology, to manage financial resources, to acquire, construct and manage property, to manage environmental health and safety, to orchestrate external relationships, manage knowledge, improvement and change where business processes (bundled business services) are supported by applications.

A value driven IT needs to understand stakeholders’ expectations and propose a service/solution portfolio that correspond to both demand and cost drivers with a focus on business priority, IT develops the professional competencies needed for successful business solution delivery, IT captures organizational knowledge to continuously improve performance, The IT and Stakeholder departments have clear objectives, processes and indicators with clear accountability and responsibility to deliver business objectives and implement business strategy steadily.


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